


Coming Clean

by Thimblerig



Series: Scenes From A War [6]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Awkward Conversations, Bathing/Washing, Check Author's Note For Details, Constance is a good bro, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, bittersweet fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-25 05:22:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14969975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: Rub-a-dub-dub, Musketeers in a tub...





	1. soap

**Author's Note:**

> // This was intended to be uncomplicated s3 fluff but… no. S3 doesn’t do uncomplicated fluff. (I tried!)
> 
> // For the purposes of this story, Aramis and Porthos are “friends who occasionally have sex without considering themselves romantically involved”. Or they used to be, at any rate. It’s complicated.
> 
> // While the referenced self-harm isn’t the focus of the story, I didn’t feel I could leave it out. You can, however, avoid it by skipping from “Not quite” to “Some people” if it would trouble you. Look after yourself, yeah?

_aramis_  


To the surprise of many, you aren’t fond of baths.  
  
Washing, yes, definitely, you have an insistence on hygiene and fragrant odour that strikes some, come up through the ranks, as odd - until they encounter your reputation as a ladies man and nod their heads wisely. But once a man is clean, he’s supposed to… sit in the water? Not moving? Until some silent arbitrary time limit is reached and so he leaves refreshed and smiling…?  
  
If it were a lake at least you could be swimming!  
  
So, no, lolling about in copper bathtubs or large wooden barrels isn’t your favourite activity. But Constance, that evening, had heated water for the six-man tub before her husband had taken the cadets out on an unscheduled evening patrol and, as she piously remarked, wasting fuel makes the Virgin Mary cry.  
  
Unable to argue, you latch the door to the little garrison bath-house, strip and clean with your usual efficiency and then, grumpily, climb into a wooden tub that is almost, _but not quite,_ sufficient to paddle in.  
  
Dents show in the surface of the still water as you swish your feet below; fingers drum on the edge of the tub. Sighing gustily you rake at your hair then curve forward to duck your head under the steaming water, where it is dark and the world sounds different.  
  
Something like a vice grips your neck and yanks you out.  
  
“What the bloody hell?!”  
  
  
**  
  
  
_porthos_  
  
There are few men capable of manhandling Aramis. Fewer still, under whom he’d suffer it quietly. You, after months of on-and-off quarrelling, are still one of them - which is not to be sniffed at.  
  
Neither are you _,_ let’s be clear, it’s just that it was a long day travelling and the smells of road-dirt and horse are inevitable. But Constance said the big tub was full and unoccupied and so you grabbed the spot: fortune favours the bold...  
  
Now Aramis is still under your hand, quiet in the steaming water. He looks faintly ridiculous with his dripping hair trailed askew over his forehead and into his eyes, and tickling the back of your hand. Also: annoyed. Which is fair. “If you’re quite done ogling my fair body?” Aramis says warily.  
  
“Not quite,” you answer, eyeing his back and shoulders. They’re faint, the marks, tiny grooves in the skin - it was only the shift of the lamplight on water-sheen that showed them to you, briefly. “Did your monastery flog you for running away?”  
  
“No,” he answers shortly.  
  
“Then…?” (Your voice is level, you swear.)  
  
He rolls his eyes behind hair like waterweed. “A cord of discipline,” he explains, voice sharp. “Some orders use it as a concentration aid.”  
  
“You _let_ them do this to you, what the -”  
  
“I stopped it! Alright? It stopped; it’s fine; please leave it alone.”  
  
“Some people aren’t fit to be let out alone.”  
  
He holds up one hand, two fingers crossed. “You and the abbot, like _that.”_  
  
“Hey now, that is uncalled for.”  
  
“Mother-cats, the pair of you.”  
  
“Cut it out.”  
  
_“Meow.”_  
  
For that, you rub your thumb gently across his neck, just below the line of his skull. Warm as it is in here, gooseflesh forms on the skin of his forehead and nubbles under the pad of your thumb before you release your grip. How long has it been for him?  
  
“Years, brother,” he sighs.  
  
“I didn’t -”  
  
“Get in the tub, Porthos.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // “cord of discipline” - this is something book!Aramis canonically dallied with (Ch. 26 “The Thesis of Aramis”). I’m working with the idea he might, in a post s2 depression, have gone a bit far with it before concerned people stepped in. Ref: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_(instrument_of_penance)


	2. steam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some minor references to "Campaign Rules", the first story in this series, though you don't have to have read it to understand what's going on.

_ aramis _   
  
Porthos has lost nothing of girth in the last few months, has gained, rather: muscles filling out from the stringy wiriness that had worried you last autumn. The regular meals and solid bed of garrison life have been good for him. He sees you watching - pretending not to watch - from under your eyelashes and preens a little, unselfconscious. A subtle flex  _ here, _ a turn to show his best angle as he sets his doublet down… somewhere an artist is missing his muse. The water rises around you as he climbs inside and settles, with a dainty wriggle, on the inner ledge of the great tub. With a bountiful sigh he leans back, arms along the rim, knees relaxed and open.   
  
“Enjoying the view?” he asks innocently.   
  
In answer you kick him on the shin. He chuckles and the richness and the warmth of it goes through you. It has been, it has been a  _ long _ time.   
  
He turns and reaches behind him and you see, in the flex of his side, old scars gone faded and easy in the candlelight - a large gash you remember tending, a row of burns you don’t. It has been a long time.   
  
“You’re thinking again,” he rumbles, as you watch the line of his neck and shoulder turned dark amber in the light. He sits up, with a green glass bottle in his hand and a pewter goblet caught by a finger around the stem. Pulling the cork with his teeth he says around it, “Is there any way I can relax you?”   
  
“Is that you asking for a pull tonight?”    
  
“It’s not me  _ not _ asking for a pull,” he answers cautiously.   
  
“Not in the  _ water.”  _   
  
He chuckles again, filling the goblet with tart red wine. “I’m not doing it in a muddy field again.”   
  
“Feeling old, old man?”   
  
“A bit tired of campaign rules,” he admits, oddly quiet.   
  
You run a testing toe up the inner curve of his ankle and he spits the cork. “Haven’t you heard?” you inquire, lowering your eyelashes. “We brought the war home with us.”   
  
“Yeah,” he answers, voice falling. His mouth flattens.   
  
This won’t do. Large as this tub is, there’s only room for  _ one _ mopey bastard in it. You stand, the water streaming off you, and stare until he rises himself, with a light of challenge in his rich brown eyes. The heat of him, even here, is palpable; you let yourself be drawn to it as blind flowers lean towards the sun. His delicate eyelids drift shut; lips part as you trace hands up water-slick hips and flanks, down the sculpted muscle and bone of his arms. Your own eyes close as you tuck yourself in, forehead to forehead, nose to nose. Breathing grows ragged. Fingers trail down the sensitive skin of his wrists and his hands loosen.   
  
You take the goblet out of them.   
  
“I thank you, brother.”   
  
  
**   
  
  
_ Porthos _   
  
Aramis smirks wickedly as he settles back in the water and stares at you, eyes hot over the rim of the cup. And he sits, drinking your good wine.   
  
“There you are,” you say gravely, “face like an angel and underneath it you are a  _ prick.” _   
  
“An  _ angelic _ prick, thank you very much.”   
  
And you giggle together, because neither of you ever matured a subtle sense of humour.    
  
You open your mouth and he says, sing-song, “Not in the  _ water, _ brother. It hasn’t been years for  _ you. _ A little patience?”   
  
Frowning, you say, “It’s been a while.”   
  
“Still, I imagine d’Artagnan has some colourful stories,” he says sweetly.   
  
You swallow. “Does Constance know?”   
  
Aramis blinks. Then a fox-like smirk spreads across his face. “You and our little Gascon? Truly?”   
  
“Does Constance know?” Aramis and the quartermaster, they’re like  _ that, _ these days.    
  
He looks at you, considering. “I don’t believe Madame d’Artagnan is at all unhappy in her marriage. Or her marriage bed. Whatever she knows or suspects or wonders, she understands loneliness. She wouldn’t grudge a little comfort taken in the field.”   
  
Campaign rules. So it’s fine, everything’s fine. Everybody’s friends here.   
  
A toe nudges your ankle, under the water. “Do I have to steal the bottle, as well?”   
  
You look up. Aramis watches you, brown eyes very clear. “Porthos, you are loved.”


	3. stillness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more bittersweet than I'd planned.

_porthos_  
  
“You are loved,” he says, as if that makes anything better.  
  
“Where do you go?” you ask suddenly. “If you haven’t a lover in the city, where do you slope off to all the time?”  
  
“It’s not a secret.”  
  
_Sans_ cup, you drink from the glass bottle, its long neck cold and slick in your prisoning hand.  
  
“I’m better at stitching and setting bones than physic,” he explains, “but Sylvie’s folk in Saint-Antoine can generally use another trained pair of hands. And I pray. That’s all.”  
  
“God stuff.”  
  
His eyes glint. “God stuff.”  
  
“That something you need?” you ask, voice casual.  
  
“What _I_ need isn’t the point. But… yes.”  
  
“Least you’re not stepping by Herself with a basket of sugarplums,” you say. “That’s something.”  
  
“One time,” he says, face smoothing into a mild mask. “I looked in on them _one time,_ in half a year. You’d judge me for that?”

“You have them all fooled,” you tell him. “They think you’re sweet and kind and _accommodating_ and you are? But under it all you’re an alley-dog with your teeth sunk in a bone, warning off all comers.”  
  
The corner of his mouth moves, the rest of him still as an ivory statue in the low amber light. “That’s why you like me.”  
  
You suppose it is.  
  
Safety be damned, caution be damned, he’ll never give _her_ up, only circle around, pretending, until it’s convenient for her to whistle him back in. Nor will she ever truly drop him, not with that sea of devotion primed to soothe her love-starved, court-reared heart. What does that make you?  
  
A jealous man.  
  
You dip your hand in the water and, as he drops his eyes to drink, sweep a great wave over his head. He comes up sputtering.  
  
“Surprise looks good on you,” you tell him.  
  
  
**  
  
  
_aramis_  
  
You suppose it does.

You gaze mournfully at your cup - you can't really call it dregs, just water with a last hopeful tincture of wine in it - then set it respectfully on the floor. You can feel him smirking.

“Do you ever wonder about Alice?” you ask, still looking down. “The merry widow,” you clarify.

“I know who you mean,” he rumbles softly.

“If you'd married her...” It would have been different - he might have three children bouncing on his knee right now, fat and happy and rich. You can hear his bountiful laughter. You would have been happy for them, you would have been the _best_ uncle, you swear, what's one flare of anxiety in a lifetime -

Silence.

Then a spattering of water drops against the side of your face stings you to look at him. “You think too much,” he tells you, with great truth.

A pause. His eyelids drop as he looks at nothing for a breath and a breath.

“Soldiering is something _I_ need,” he says.

He shrugs his great shoulders and the water in the tub sloshes outrageously in the tub as he rises.

 _“Jesu,”_ you swear, hopping out yourself. “If you want to be alone so badly, you may _keep_ the bath.”

Porthos looks at you over his shoulder, eyes twinkling, as he dries himself with a soft cloth. “‘Not in the water,’ you said. I remember that.”    
  
It’s the water cooling on your skin that makes you shiver.

“Would it make anything better truly?” you ask, and he wraps the towel around you still warm from his body.  
  
“Don’t we understand loneliness, brother?” He cradles your wrist in his hand, gentle as if you were a maiden timid on the wedding night.  
  
“I’m all to pieces,” you warn as you clutch the towel with your free hand, your hair still dripping on bare shoulders.  

His eyes smile. “I know. Come to bed.”

And you do.

 

_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // _“If you haven’t a lover in the city, where do you slope off to all the time?”_ \- just speculating that the reason nobody knew Aramis was Up To Something in the lead up to 3.08 is that he was absenting himself already, without much explanation. And if he doesn't have a lover...
> 
> // _“I looked in on them one time, in half a year.”_ \- s3 timeline, as far as I can tell: 3.01-3.02 autumn (the grain harvest in The Hunger); 3.03 either late autumn or early spring (the weather isn’t _great_ but breath isn’t steaming from the cold; Louis comments on his “last summer” and there’s been time for fancy new leather doublets to be made for our heroes so I’m betting spring - in which case Aramis lasted a whole season before looking in on the dauphin); 3.04 summer (people keep opening their doublets to cool down); 3.05 summer; 3.06-3.07 late summer/early autumn (the fields are tawny as Porthos and d’Art ride to the ambush); 3.08-3.10 autumn. This story is set between 3.04 Diamonds and 3.05 King


End file.
